There are many part-time workers who work several part-time jobs. One such worker in South Dakota, Patricia Wheeler, was injured at one job and therefore could not work at any of her three different jobs. Last year the state’s Supreme Court decided that a worker who had more than one job could receive workers’ compensation benefits for all of their jobs that they are then unable to perform as a result of the injury.

The state legislature is now in the middle of passing legislation that would solidify these multiple, “aggregated” workers’ compensation payments and clarify when workers would qualify. Representative David Anderson, who introduced the bill, said that sometimes the Supreme Court rules one way on a case, but that ruling is then applied to all sorts of cases which can lead to confusion if there are certain details in those cases that weren’t addressed in the original ruling. He hopes this bill will clear up the confusion.

House Bill 1084 would aggregate a workers’ wages from their jobs when their injury from one job prevents them from doing their duties at other places of employment. It would also define situations when it would apply and when it would not. For example, seasonal workers injured at their seasonal job would not be able to claim benefits from that seasonal job to cover their non-seasonal jobs. The state House Commerce and Energy Committee has endorsed the legislation, and the Department of Labor and Regulation supports the bill. It has not come onto the table for the House’s consideration but it is scheduled to appear in the coming weeks.

Insurance companies and employer organizations seem to agree with the measure. Mike Shaw is a lawyer who represents the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, and said that it is “a matter of fundamental fairness”.

Many workers have to work several different jobs to make ends meet and support a family, so an injury at one job can be devastating to themselves or the people that depend on them.